Music History – Old Magazine Articles

“Porgy and Bess”
(Stage Magazine, 1935)

Music critic and scholar Isaac Goldberg (1887 – 1938) reviewed the opening performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for the editors of STAGE MAGAZINE:

Why the Jew of the North should, in time, take up the song of the Southern Negro and fuse into a typically American product is an involved question. Perhaps, underneath the jazz rhythms and the general unconventionality of musical process lies the common history of an oppressed minority, and an ultimately Oriental origin. In any case, the human focus of this particular type of musical Americanism has been, from the very first notes, George Gershwin.

Leonard Bernstein
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

This Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) profile is a real page turner – briefly explaining in four and a half pages all that this composer and conductor had been up to during the first thirty-eight years of his very productive life. The article appeared on the newsstands during the earliest days of 1957, when he was partnered with Stephen Sondheim on West Side Story and mention is made of his numerous other collaborations with the likes of Jerome Robbins (Fancy Free),
Comden and Green (On the Town), and Lillian Hellman (Candide).

Remembering George Gershwin and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’
(Creative Art Magazine, 1937)

By clicking the blue title link above, you will be treated to a postmortem appraisal of the American composer George Gershwin (1898 – 1937). The article was written by one of his contemporaries; Gershwin is admired in this article, but not idolized:

No one could have been more surprised than George Gershwin at the furor the Rhapsody caused in highbrow circles. He had dashed it off in three weeks as an experiment in a form that he only vaguely understood. In no sense had he deliberately set out to make an honest woman out of jazz.

Ignaz Paderewski
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

Here is an article on the last American concert tour of Polish pianist (and composer, diplomat and politician) Ignaz Jan Paderewski (1860 – 1941). The article concentrates on the amount of money pulled-in by the performer, both on this tour as well as previous ones; his legendary generosity and his monumental reputation.

Click here to read more about Paderewski and other pianists of 1915…

Click here to see what the first car radios look like.

John Philip Sousa: The March King
(The Literary Digest, 1897)

This 1897 profile of composer John Philip Sousa (1854 – 1932) was written shortly after his triumphal return from Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, where he was feted like a native son for all his glorious march compositions – particularly The Washington Post March, which was performed while her household infantry passed in review:

There is probably no composer in the world with a popularity equal to that of Mr. Sousa. Tho he sold his ‘Washington Post’ march outright for $35.00, his ‘Liberty Bell’ march is said to have brought him $35,000…At the age of twenty-six Mr. Sousa became the leader of the United States Marine Corps Band. In the twelve years of his leadership,he developed this unimportant organization into one of the best military bands in the world.

Igor Stravinsky and the Player Piano
(The Independent, 1925)

Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971), acclaimed as the most distinguished, if not the greatest, of living composers, now sojourning in America after an absence of ten years, ardently advocates and practices the composition of mechanical music – of not merely piano music, that is, which can be played on an automatic instrument, but music composed without purpose of performance by hand, designed for the player-piano solely, and intended to take advantage of characteristics and limitations inherent in an instrument operated by a perforated roll of paper.

There is anew polyphonic truth in the player-piano. There are new possibilities. It is something more. It is not the same thing as a piano…

Giacomo Puccini
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

A two page profile of the fifty seven year-old opera composer, Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924). Published at a time when his most popular work was behind him, the article centers on the composer’s career; from Puccini’s first opera, La Ville (1884) to his most recent, The Little Wooden Shoes.

John Cage
(The American Magazine, 1942)

Russian Composers Preferred by Rimsky-Korsakov
(Review of Reviews, 1912)

For those of you looking for some dish in the music history department, this article recounts a conversation between Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) and Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) as to which Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov preferred the best: Anton Rubinstein or Peter Tschaikovsky. Opinions flew in all directions and many more names were dropped before the conversation came to a close…

Jascha Heifetz’ First New York Recital
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

Here is an enthusiastic review of Jascha Heifetz’ (1900 – 1987) first Carnegie Hall performance. The journalist relays how fully loaded the concert hall seemed to be with the finest violinists in the Western world all sitting in rapt attention; and how joyously they all applauded following his first number:

Here, mark you, were the masters of the guild giving an ovation to a slim, eighteen year-old boy and acknowledging him as one of the master violinists of the world.

Soprano Dorothy Kirsten
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Illustrated with a black and white photograph of the 33 year-old soprano was this small notice announcing the discovery of Dorthy Kirsten (1910 – 1992) of Montclair, New Jersey. Kirsten went on to great heights, performing with the Metropolitan Opera for the next thirty years, she would also enjoy some popularity singing duets on the radio with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nelson Eddy, and Perry Como.

Sergie Rachmaninoff
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1919)

An uncredited interview with the celebrated Russian composer, Sergie Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943); his education, family and his work at the Moscow Conservatory as well as the Moscow Grand Theater. Attention is paid to his activities in the United States following his flight from the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Pianists and Piano Playing
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

William James Henderson (1855 – 1937) was believed by many to be the greatest music critic of his day, and in this VANITY FAIR article he turns his nib in the direction of the pianists Ignace Paderewski (1860 – 1941), Harold Bauer (1873 – 1951), Ferruccio Busoni (1866 – 1924) and Josef Hofmann (1876 – 1957).

A 1938 article about Paderewski can be read HERE…

Composer Leo Ornstein
(Vanity Fair, 1920)

A profile of Futurist composer Leo Ornstein (1893 – 2002). Ornstein appeared on the New York music scene at a very young age; hailed as a genius by many, he performed to packed houses. In 1917, music critic James Huneker(1860-1921) remarked:

I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds—almost timid and halting—after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer alive.

Leo Ornstein left the public eye by 1925 and was soon forgotten until the 1970s. This Vanity Fair article was written by James L. Buchanan, who had written a number of pieces on Ornstein and his music throughout his career.

Kosaku Yamada: The First Japanese Composer of Operas
(Vanity Fair, 1919)

Attached, you will find a small profile of Kosaku Yamada (1886 – 1965) published shortly after his New York debut in 1919. Classicly trained in Europe, Yamada organized the first symphonic orchestra of native players to perform the music of Occidental composers under a Japanese conductor, which later became the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. This article outlines some of his various accomplisments up to 1919, while deleting others. Prior to his two year sojurn in the United States, he had composed three Japanese operas: Reisho (1909), Ochitaru Tennyo (1913) and Shichinin No Oujo (1916).

Third Symphony’ by Aaron Copland
(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1948)

A review of Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony written in 1948 by the respected Los Angeles music critic and historian Lawrence Morton (1908 – 1987):

…there can be no mistake about the Third. It is a solid structure, exceedingly rich and varied in expressiveness, large in concept, masterful in execution, completely unabashed and outspoken.

No wonder that Sergi Koussevitsky called it ‘the greatest American symphony.’

Tamaki Miura
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

Tamaki Miura (1884 – 1946) was a Japanese opera singer most often remembered for having performed in over 2,000 stagings of Madame Butterfly. At the time this short notice appeared she was only one year into her opera career, yet the Vanity Fair music critic recognized talent when he saw it and nominated her for the Vanity Fair Hall of Fame. It was her inclusion in that august body that serves as the the subject for this short paragraph, which is accompanied by a photograph.

A Bad Review for Enrico Caruso
(The Literary Digest, 1908)

André Tardieu (1876 – 1945),while writing for the French magazine TEMPS, committed to paper these unkind words regarding the Italian opera star Enrico Caruso (1873 – 1921) in an attempt, perhaps, to only slander Caruso’s many adoring American fans and the culture that created them.

…the American public admire only those artist’s for whom they pay dear.